Perceptions of Male versus Female Perpetrators of
Child-on-Child Sexual Abuse
Jorge Ortiz, Alexandra Mitchell, and Alanna Stuberfield
Lamar University
Abstract
Perception of child-on-child sexual abuse was examined in order to understand how people reacted to child-on-child sexual abuse. In the following study, only child-on-child sexual abuse scenarios were targeted, and the focus was to see if gender and age of perpetrator and victim was an indicator of how severe a scenario was perceived, how much blame was assigned to perpetrators, and how much sympathy participants had for victims. Participants were assigned to one of four child-on-child sexual abuse scenarios and were asked to answer some questions about the scenario. The results of this study did not find any significant differences caused by the manipulation. However, the findings of this study provided useful information regarding child-on-child sexual abuse. Based on our sample, we were able to suggest that, overall, participants perceived aspects of child-on-child sexual abuse in a negative way.
H. J. Ortiz 